My Darling Dreadful Thing Quotes

“It’s a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you’ve given away things you should’ve kept. Some parts of us must remain inviolate if we are to survive as a person.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“There’s a reason the word ‘haunting’ is rarely used in a positive way. To never be free of someone, well, that’s not always a comfort.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“Spirits like her are not drawn to the happy and carefree; they want salt, be it blood or be it tears.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“I suppose I was, and continue to be, a hungry thing.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“I would bear anything and everything for love of you. Now, does my love mean so little to you that you would not suffer for it as I have for yours?” “Must love be about suffering?” She looked at me with eyes so black, I wondered how she could even see. “How else does one show the strength and sincerity of one’s love if not through suffering and sacrifice?”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“To draw blood is just another kind of passion, isn’t it?”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“I was never a happy child. I think that, if I had been, things would have gone very differently with me. For one, I don’t think Ruth would have become my constant companion. Spirits like her are not drawn to the happy and carefree; they want salt, be it blood or be it tears.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“. . . there’s something missing from my life, something dreadful, something darling.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“You must be careful with that, Roos. It’s a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you’ve given away things you should’ve kept. Some parts of us must remain inviolate if we are to survive as a person.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“The question everyone wants answered is this: Was I or was I not actually possessed? But it is not so simple as that.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“Darkness lies ahead, yes, but so do joy, solace, and, above all, love.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“What I felt for Agnes was right and true, yes, but it was not selfless. Perhaps love never is.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“After a while, Peter came inside. He was bejewelled with raindrops. They had caught most beautifully in the mold at his throat. He regarded us for a little while, then came over and squatted next to us, his joints popping like green wood in a fire.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“Left alone in the dark, this secret festers, until everything around it is infected with its rot and it has become impossible to ignore, forcing us to witness the most depraved sides of humanity.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“How else does one show the strength and sincerity of one’s love if not through suffering and sacrifice?”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“To be Gothic means to refuse to be easily defined. That being said, Gothic novels generally have, at their heart, at least one secret so gruesome it has been dropped down a well, locked away in the attic, or buried somewhere in the garden.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“It’s no small thing, to be allowed to keep one’s dignity.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“You were also intensely lonely and starved of love and affection by your mother. Freud tells us that we all crave our mother’s love. Mama couldn’t give you what you needed, so your mind created a mother who could: Ruth.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“Around and around my thoughts went, ever deeper, ever darker, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. What use was it, this chewing over all the ways things could go wrong? Being caught in my own head was exhausting. Worse, it was useless, and I despised being useless.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“It's no small thing, to be allowed to keep one's dignity.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“So you were possessive of Mrs. K— in the same way a collector of shells or butterflies is?” P: “No. Those are objects. I never saw A— [Mrs. K—] as such. I was just… I wanted to eat her up and drink her in. I was hungry for her touch and her words and her love. That’s very different from collecting shells or butterflies.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“You’re kind and funny and smart, and so much more besides. He couldn’t take that away from you. He might’ve tried, but he couldn’t because you’re stronger than him and stronger than what he did to you.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“Do not seek to correct what you don’t understand,”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“Some spiritualists say that a person who dies a violent death is shackled to the earth.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“To be Gothic means to refuse to be easily defined. That being said, Gothic novels generally have, at their heart, at least one secret so gruesome it has been dropped down a well, locked away in the attic, or buried somewhere in the garden. Left alone in the dark, this secret festers, until everything around it is infected with its rot and it has become impossible to ignore, forcing us to witness the most depraved sides of humanity.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“Happy. Such a funny little word, don’t you think? Perhaps not so hard a state to achieve, but nearly impossible to maintain, and different for everyone.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“You said you never let another spirit in. Why make an exception for Ruth?” P: “Because she was mine and I was hers.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“What use was it, this chewing over all the ways things could go wrong? Being caught in my own head was exhausting. Worse, it was useless, and I despised being useless.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“You must have felt so frustrated, so powerless,” I said. “I did, and never more so than when he smiled at me and said, ‘See, darling? I can have you put away anytime I like.’ I knew he was right. Once people believe you’re mad, anything you do will convince them more.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing

“She smells like autumn--that is to say, like wet earth and leaves sweet with the first touch of rot.”
― Johanna van Veen, My Darling Dreadful Thing